collecting and channeling my thoughts on design

Brain starting to emerge from hibernation.

January 20, 2011

Had class today. Was assigned a poster project we are going to submit for a competition. It seems like fun; I don’t have much info but it’s the Chaumont poster competition and it seems CEREBRAL and about WRITING/TEXT. I’ve been reading and rereading the brief which seems to me purposefully non-sensical, but I suspect what they are driving at is how writing can be used in design to still create open interpretations. As in, in terms of images, consider a portrait: you see that and you can project all this stuff onto it, it’s an open image that you as the viewer can fill in. But writing is much more explicit (especially in a poster format!) so how can writing + text be used in an open way, that you as the reader can fill in the meaning of. Lucky me! This is quite close to many of my interests: negation, Kenya Hara and asking questions rather than telling; taking things apart…

So I’ve been trying to read and think about it. Reading’s hard. Have been looking at texts about the nature of a book and its future in the digital world. I wish someone like Malcolm Gladwell could digest this for me in easy to handle pop-sci format!

I can really feel how my brain is emerging from hibernation like a drowsy bear and is all blinking around outside at the sunlight trying to figure out what’s going on. We’ve been very relaxed for a while and now we must remember how to walk and growl, much less hunt. I really feel so dazed right now about how to do any sort of design — it’s been a really great vacation! — it’s only by sheer willpower that I’m confident that something–and probably something really great!–will come out of all this.